Times editor apologises to judge for failing to tell of hacking

The editor of The Times has apologised to a High Court judge after admitting
he knew that one of his reporters was guilty of hacking but kept the “dirty
deed” secret while the judge considered a landmark ruling.

James Harding wrote to Mr Justice Eady to explain what he described as a "terrible" decision to remain quiet about the reporter illegally accessing the email account of Richard Horton, a policeman who blogged anonymously under the name NightJack. In 2009 the judge lifted an injunction that protected the identity of Mr Horton after being told that Patrick Foster, a Times reporter, had worked out his identity through “deduction” using publicly available information.

In fact, Mr Harding admitted to the Leveson Inquiry yesterday, Mr Foster had discovered the blogger’s name by hacking into his email account, which the editor knew as the judge considered his decision in the case.

Mr Harding accepted that Mr Justice Eady might have "exploded" if he had known about the hacking at the time he was considering his ruling, and also apologised to Mr Horton, saying he "sorely regretted" the intrusion.

The matter is part of the Metropolitan Police’s Operation Tuleta inquiry into computer hacking.

Mr Harding, who first admitted that a reporter had been disciplined over computer hacking when he gave evidence to the inquiry last month, was recalled by Lord Justice Leveson after further details came to light. He handed over emails that showed that Mr Foster had told the newspaper’s legal manager, Alastair Brett, and its home news editor, Martin Barrow, that he had hacked Mr Horton’s emails weeks before the newspaper went to court for the right to name the blogger.

On May 20 2009 Mr Foster emailed Mr Barrow to say: "Alastair on side … am trying to talk it out of the paper this Sat … want little more space between the dirty deed and publishing."

Mr Harding said Mr Foster had hacked the email in the days before this. Rather than disciplining Mr Foster, Mr Brett told him that if he wanted to pursue the story he would have to find a way of showing he could have worked out Mr Horton’s identity by legitimate means.

On May 30 Mr Foster emailed Mr Brett to say that he could "do the whole lot" from publicly available information. The legal manager replied: "Brilliant — that may be the golden bullet.”

Mr Harding said: "If Foster had come to me and said he had done this we would have taken disciplinary action and I would have told him to abandon the story."

Perhaps surprisingly, the editor said he was not told his newspaper was going to the High Court to fight for the right to name Mr Horton until after the hearing had taken place on June 4, 2009.

Mr Harding said he was "shocked" when he discovered in recent days that Mr Horton’s legal team had suggested six times that his emails had been hacked and that Mr Brett had repeatedly brushed it aside as a "baseless allegation".

On the evening of June 4, Mr Brett emailed a memo to Mr Harding and David Chappell, who was managing editor of The Times, telling them that Mr Foster had "gained access to the blogger’s email account", which "raised immediate alarm bells with me".

The email said Mr Foster might just have a public interest defence "if anyone ever found out how stupid he’d been". However, Mr Brett was advised by a barrister that Mr Foster had broken the Computer Misuse Act, to which there was no public interest defence.

Mr Harding said he did not read the email that night, as he was distracted by an attempt that day to oust Gordon Brown with a series of Cabinet resignations.

The next day he held a meeting with Mr Brett at which he was told the facts, but he gave the hacking "insufficient attention" because he was angrier about the court case happening behind his back. He agreed that if Mr Justice Eady had been told about the email hacking "he might have exploded".

Instead, on June 14, the judge ruled in favour of The Times, saying the blogger had no right to expect anonymity. Mr Brett admitted that he did not tell the newspaper’s barrister about the hacking because it would have "incriminate" Mr Foster. Mr Harding said he "had little choice" but to name the blogger once the paper had fought a court case over it.

Mr Foster was later disciplined over the hacking, and subsequently dismissed over an unrelated matter.